| "In Nauvoo, Illinois, during the first week in May 1843, the Church
publication 'Times and Seasons' printed an article entitled 'Ancient Records'
which reported the alleged discovery of six ancient brass plates in an Indian
mound near the town of Kinderhook, fifty-five miles south of Nauvoo in Pike
County, Illinois.
"A statement signed by W. P. Harris, M.D., of Barry, Pike county, informed
the 'Times and Seasons' readers of the discovery:
"'On the 16th of April last a respectable merchant by the name of Robert
Wiley, commenced digging in a large mound near this place: he excavated to
the depth of 10 feet and came to rock; about that time the rain began to fall,
and he abandoned the work. On the 23rd he and quite a number of the citizens
with myself, repaired to the mound, and after making ample opening, we found
plenty of rock, the most of which appeared as though it had been strongly
burned; and after removing full two feet of said rock, we found plenty of
charcoal and ashes; also human bones that appeared as though they had been
burned; and near the eciphalon [correctly spelled "encephalon," or head] a
bundle was found that consisted of six plates of brass, of a bell shape, each
having a hole near the small end, and a ring through them all, and clasped
with two clasps, the ring and clasps appeared to be of iron very much
oxidated, the plates appeared first to be copper, and had the appearance of
being covered with characters. It was agreed by the company that I should
cleanse the plates: accordingly I took them to my house, washed them with
soap and water, and a woolen cloth; but finding them not yet cleansed I
treated them with dilute sulphuric acid which made them perfectly clean, on
which it appeared that they were completely covered with hieroglyphics that
none as yet have been able to read.'
"The plates greatly excited public curiosity in the area, and within a week of
their alleged discovery they were brought to Nauvoo for a short stay. An
editorial comment in the same 'Times and Seasons' article indicates how
important the eager writer felt these brass plates might be: 'Circumstances
are daily transpiring which give additional testimony to the authenticity of
the Book of Mormon....The following...will, perhaps have a tendency to
convince the skeptical, that such things [metal plates] have been used, and
that even the obnoxious Book of Mormon, may be true.'
"The editorial further reported: 'Mr. Smith has had those plates, what his
opinion concerning them is, we have not yet ascertained. The gentleman that
owns them has taken them away, or we should have given a fac simile of the
plates and characters in this number. We are informed however, that he
purposes returning with them for translation; if so, we may be able yet to
furnish our readers with it.'
"A month and a half later the 'Nauvoo Neighbor' press published a 12" X 15"
broadside entitled 'Discovery of the Brass Plates'. (see p. 72.) This
handbill contained a reprint of the 'Times and Seasons' story, with the
addition of facsimiles of all twelve sides of the six plates. Nothing further
regarding the Prophet's opinion of the plates appeared on the broadside--only
a statement that 'the contents of the plates...will be published in the 'Times
and Seasons,' as soon as the translation is completed.'
"These two oblique references to a 'translation' were followed thirteen years
later by a more direct published statement that until recently was wrongly
thought to have been written by Joseph Smith himself. On September 3 and 10,
1856, the following paragraphs appeared in the 'Deseret News' [Salt Lake City
newspaper] as part of the serialized 'History of Joseph Smith':
"'[May 1, 1843:] I insert fac similes of the six brass plates found near
Kinderhook, in Pike county, Illinois, on April 23, by Mr. R. Wiley and
others, while excavating a large mound. They found a skeleton about six feet
from the surface of the earth, which must have stood nine feet high. The
plates were found on the breast of the skeleton, and were covered on both
sides with ancient characters.
"'I have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of
the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the
loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the
ruler of heaven and earth.' (Then followed a reprint of material from the
'Times and Seasons' article.)
"Although this account appears to be the writing of Joseph Smith, it is
actually an excerpt from a journal of William Clayton. It has been well known
that the serialized 'History of Joseph Smith' consists largely of items from
other sources, collected during Joseph Smith's lifetime and continued after
the Saints were in Utah, then edited and pieced together to form a history of
the Prophet's life 'in his own words.' It was not uncommon in the nineteenth
century for biographers to put the narrative in the first person when
compiling a biographical work, even though the subject of the biography did
not actually say or write all the words attributed to him; thus the narrative
would represent a faithful report of what others felt would be helpful to
print. The Clayton journal excerpt was one item used in this way. For
example, the words 'I have translated a portion' originally read 'President J.
has translated a portion...."
"Where the ideas written by William Clayton originated is unknown. However,
as will be pointed out later, speculation about the plates and their possible
content was apparently quite unrestrained in Nauvoo when the plates first
appeared. In any case, this altered version of the extract from William
Clayton's journal was reprinted in the 'Millennial Star' [Church newspaper
published in England] of 15 January 1859, and unfortunately, was finally
carried over into official Church history when the 'History of Joseph Smith'
was edited into book form as the 'History of the Church' in 1909.
"By 1912, however, at least two items of evidence had come to light indicating
that the Kinderhook plates were not authentic. One was a letter written in
1855 (but not published until 1912) by Dr. W. P. Harris--the same W. P.
Harris who authored the statement that appeared in the 'Times and Seasons'
article. In this letter he wrote that in 1843 he had accepted the discovery
of the plates as genuine. 'I washed and cleaned the plates and subsequently
made an honest affidavit to the same,' he said. 'but since that time, Bridge
Whitton [a blacksmith in Kinderhook, Illinois] said to me that he cut and
prepared the plates and he (B. Whitton) and R. Wiley engraved them
themselves, and that there was nitric acid put upon them the night before they
were found to rust the iron ring and band. And that they were carried to the
mound, rubbed in the dirt and careful dropped into the pit where they were
found.'
The other item was a letter written in 1879 by Wilbur Fugate (another of those
present at the excavation of the plates) to an anti-Mormon in Salt Lake City.
Fugate declared that the alleged discovery of the Kinderhook plates was a
'HUMBUG, gotten up by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton and myself....None of the
nine persons who signed the certificate [a document included in the 'Times and
Seasons' article] knew the secret, except Wiley and I.
"'We read in Pratt's prophecy that 'Truth is yet to spring out of the earth.'
[The quote is from Parley P. Pratt's 1837 missionary tract 'Voice of
Warning.] We soon made our plans and executed them. Bridge Whitton cut them
out of some pieces of copper; Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making
impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid and putting it on the
plates. When they were finished we put them together with rust made of nitric
acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering
them completely with the rust.'
"Fugate then went on to tell how they secretly buried the plates and faked
their discovery.
"These accounts have generated much controversy for more than a hundred years
since the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the question being twofold: (1) are the
Kinderhook plates authentic? and (2) did Joseph Smith attempt to translate
them? In general, Latter-day Saint scholars and laymen have sought to confirm
the story of the Kinderhook plates, feeling that such authentication would
both defend the Prophet and make more plausible the account of the Book of
Mormon having been taken from plates of gold. Antagonists, on the other hand,
have sought to demonstrate that Joseph Smith was a false prophet."
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"Because the whereabouts of the plates since at least 1844 had been unknown,
their authenticity remained a matter of conjecture. But in 1920, one of them
came into the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. Only then did
direct testing become possible.
"How the one remaining plate got to Chicago is an interesting story in
itself--a story that is consistent with physical evidence (to be discussed
later) that this plate is indeed one of the original Kinderhook plates brought
to Nauvoo in 1843.
"In 1845, a Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell established a college of medicine in St.
Louis. The college had a museum of natural history that contained 3,000
items, among them 'antiquities, c. of our country.' W. P. Harris, in his
letter of 1855, said he had heard from a fellow physician 'that R Wiley
graduated [from the college] since finding the plates...and that Dr.
Professor McDowell on surgery has the plates now in his office.' It is now
apparent that Wiley either sold or gave the Kinderhook plates to McDowell for
the museum.
"McDowell was a southern sympathizer who left St. Louis to serve the
Confederacy as a physician during the Civil War. This made him very unpopular
in St. Louis, and when the U.S. Army seized his college in 1861 for use as a
prison, the 2nd Iowa Reserve Regiment sacked it.
"The Chicago Historical Society received one of the plates in 1920 as a gift
from Charles F. Gunther, a noted collector of historical artifacts. Gunther
had acquired it on 15 July 1889 from F. C. A. Richardson, M.D. (a member
of both the St. Louis and the Chicago Academies of Science). Richardson in
turn received it from a Dr. J. W. McDowell (not the same man as Dr. Joseph
Nash McDowell), who got it from a soldier in the 2nd Iowa Reserve Regiment.
"Since coming to public awareness in 1920, this plate has undergone a number
of tests. For example, in 1953 it was examined by two engravers who made an
affidavit stating that 'to the best of our knowledge this Plate was engraved
with a pointed instrument and not etched with acid'--a conclusion which
contradicted the letters claiming the plates to be a hoax, and which therefore
fueled the hopes of those who wanted the plates to be proven genuine.
"A much more rigorous study of the Chicago plate was organized in 1969 by Dr.
Paul Cheesman of Brigham Young University. He secured permission from the
Chicago Historical Society to bring the plate to BYU for exhaustive
non-destructive testing--that is, analytical tests not involving actual damage
to the plate. The results of these tests were to be compared with previous
tests performed in 1960 and 1966. The plate was examined by physicists,
engravers, a jeweler, a metal worker, and several photographers, with mixed
results. The physicists concluded that the plate was acid-etched and of
non-ancient brass; the others could not agree whether it was etched, engraved,
or both. Dr. Cheesman concluded: 'It appears we need to have a destructive
analysis for further confirmation. Much more testing needs to be done.'
"There the matter rested until 1980, when I had the good fortune to secure
permission from the Chicago Historical Society for the recommended destructive
tests. These tests, involving some very sophisticated analytical techniques,
were performed by Professor D. Lynn Johnson of the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering at Northwestern University.
"Dr. Johnson used a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to examine the groves
that form the characters on the plate to determine whether they were cut or
scratched with a tool or whether they were etched with acid. A scanning Auger
microprobe (SAM) was used to detect any nitrogen residues that might have been
left in the groves as a result of etching with nitric acid. To determine the
composition of the metal, an X-ray fluorescence analysis was done on a small
amount of material removed from the plate (a destructive test). And finally,
an edge of the plate was ground and polished so that the metal could be
examined by microscope for impurities and inclusions (also a destructive
test).
"The extreme depth of focus and resolution of the scanning electron microscope
(SEM) at high magnification make it possible to clearly distinguish between
etching or engraving on metal surfaces. If a character were cut or scratched
into the surface, the groove would contain secondary grooves and ridges
running lengthwise within it where the engraving instrument forced a flow of
metal. This would be especially noticeable at groove intersections, where
metal would be pushed from the second groove into the first. On the other
hand, etched lines would show no metal flows or secondary grooves; instead, a
roughened, pock-marked etching would be seen.
"Figure 1 shows part of one of the characters as seen in the SEM. the
irregular, grainy texture characteristic of acid etching is evident, not a
striated surface that would have been produced by an engraving tool. A
thorough SEM examination of the characters on the plate brought Dr. Johnson
to the conclusion that the characters on the plate were indeed prepared by
acid etching, not by any form of tooling, scratching, or cutting.
"It became apparent during the SEM study that a residue of some kind was
present in some of the grooves. The scanning Auger microprobe (SAM) was used
to analyze these residues. A clear indication of nitrogen was detected, which
would be consistent with a copper nitrate residue and could indicate that
nitric acid was used in the etching, as those who reportedly originated the
deception had claimed.
"The X-ray fluorescence test indicated that the plate was made of a true brass
alloy of approximately 73 percent copper, 24 percent zinc, and lessor amounts
of other metals. In addition, an examination of the small area of the plate
that was ground and polished revealed a basically 'clean' alloy--that is,
there were very few visible traces of impurities such as particles of slag and
other debris that one might expect to find in metal of ancient manufacture.
"As a result of these tests, we concluded that the plate owned by the Chicago
Historical Society is not of ancient origin. We concluded that the plate was
etched with acid; and as Paul Cheesman and other scholars have pointed out,
ancient inhabitants would probably have engraved the plates rather than etched
them with acid. Secondly, we concluded that the plate was made from a true
brass alloy (copper and zinc) typical of the mid-nineteenth century; whereas
the 'brass' of ancient times was actually bronze, an alloy of copper and tin.
Furthermore, one would expect an ancient alloy to contain larger amounts of
impurities and inclusions than did the alloy tested.
"Dr. Johnson and I did, however, take into account the possibility that the
Chicago plate was only a copy of the original. In reference to this, he
reported:
"'In the course of examining the plate, an interesting anomaly was discovered.
One of the characters on the plate (side B, column 3) has an angular dent near
one end. [See Figure 2.] That this is a dent can be verified by noticing that
a similar dent exists nearby, close to the edge of the plate. A larger
magnification of the latter dent reveals a feature toward the right which
would have been produced by a nick in the edge of the instrument that produced
the dent. [See Figure 3.] This same nick shows up in the left-hand dent,
partially obliterated by the intersection of the dent with one of the vertical
strokes of the character. [See Figure 4.] This dent was interpreted in the
1843 published facsimiles of the Kinderhook plate as part of the character.
[See illustration, p. 72.] The significance of this is that the facsimile
must therefore have been made from this plate, rather than this plate being a
copy based on the facsimile. If the present plate were a copy from the
facsimile, this stroke would have been etched in with the other strokes,
rather than being added as a dent.'
"The conclusion, therefore, is that the Chicago plate is indeed one of the
original Kinderhook plates, which now fairly well evidences them to be faked
antiquities."
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"But what does the above conclusion mean in relationship to the earlier
references to a 'translation' of the Kinderhook plates by Joseph Smith? Did
he actually attempt to translate any of the plates?
"To answer that question, it is necessary to look at the events of April and
May 1843 in sequence:
"The plates were 'discovered' on Sunday, 23 April 1843, and taken home by Dr.
Harris for cleaning. Then, according to a story in the 'Quincy Whig', they
were exhibited in Quincy during the following week.
"There is some question about who brought the plates to Nauvoo. The Quincy,
Illinois, certificate printed in the 'Times and Seasons' article said, 'The
above described plates we have handed to Mr. Sharp [a Latter-day Saint
present at the excavation] for the purpose of taking them to Nauvoo.' However,
Wilbur Fugate wrote in his 1879 letter: 'The Mormons wanted to take the
plates to Joe Smith, but we refused to let them go. Some time afterward a man
assuming the name of Savage, of Quincy, borrowed the plates of Wiley to Show
to his literary friends there, and took them to Joe Smith. The same identical
plates were returned to Wiley.'
"Charlotte Haven, a somewhat antagonistic non-Mormon who was visiting her
sister (a Mormon) in Nauvoo at the time, wrote a letter on May 2 that gives
the following account:
"'We hear very frequently from our Quincy friends through Mr. Joshua Moore,
who passes through that place and this in his monthly sigzag tours through the
State, traveling horseback. His last call on us was last Saturday [April 29]
and he brought with him half a dozen thin pieces of brass, apparently very
old, in the form of a bell about five or six inches long. They had on them
scratches that looked like symbolic characters. They were recently found, he
said, in a mound a few miles below Quincy. When he showed them to Joseph, the
latter said that the figures or writing on them was similar to that in which
the Book of Mormon was written, and if Mr. Moore could leave them, he thought
that by the help of revelation he would be able to translate them.'
"It is possible, then, that Mr. Joshua Moore was the one who obtained the
plates by pretense and brought them to Nauvoo. In any event, the plates had
apparently arrived in Nauvoo by Saturday, April 29, and had been shown to
Joseph Smith.
"William Clayton evidently had access to the plates at some point, for in his
journal entry of Monday, May 1, he included a tracing of one of the plates.
(Whether or not he was present when Joseph Smith saw the plates is unknown.)
Two days later, on Wednesday, Brigham Young also drew an outline of one of the
Kinderhook plates in a small notebook/diary that he kept. Inside the drawing
he wrote: 'May 3- 1843. I had this at Joseph smith's house. Found near
Quincy.'
"Very soon afterward the plates were removed from Nauvoo, for the 'Times and
Seasons' editorial, which was written perhaps on Wednesday or Thursday (May 3
or 4) said: 'Mr. Smith has had those plates, what his opinion concerning
them is, we have not yet ascertained. the gentleman that owns them has taken
them away, or we should have given a fac simile of the plates and characters
in this number. We are informed however, that he purposes returning with them
for translation; if so, we may be able yet to furnish our readers with it.'
"The plates were apparently in Nauvoo, then, from Saturday the 29th through
Wednesday the 3rd--a period of five days--and were then taken away. Later,
however, they were evidently returned to Nauvoo for a time, for by June 24,
the 'Nauvoo Neighbor' press had access to them and was thus able to produce
facsimiles for the published broadside. A 'History of the Church' entry for
Sunday, May 7, says: 'In the forenoon I [Joseph Smith] was visited by several
gentlemen, concerning the plates that were dug out near Kinderhook.' Whether
or not the plates were actually returned on that day--or indeed, whether
Joseph Smith himself ever had the plates again--is uncertain.
"In any case, the translation for which hope had been expressed in the 'Times
and Seasons' did not appear. In a letter dated April 8, 1878, Wilbur Fugate
recalled: 'We understood Joe Smith said [the plates] would make a book of
1200 pages but he would not agree to translate them until they were sent to
the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia, France, and England.' Furthermore, a
review of other entries in Joseph Smith's history indicate that he was
occupied during the following weeks with mayoral duties, Church business, the
Nauvoo Legion [militia], and four different trips to neighboring cities; there
is no indication of translating activities. Then on June 23, just one day
before publication of the broadside that repeated the Saints' hopeful
expectation of an eventual translation, the Prophet was abducted by
Missourians who tried to get him to Missouri for prosecution on charges of
'treason.' He made it back to Nauvoo on June 30, but the 'habeas corpus'
proceedings took up more than two weeks of his time.
"Just when the plates were taken from Nauvoo for the second and perhaps final
time is uncertain. But we know that by fall of that same year they were back
in Robert Wiley's possession, for on November 15 he wrote a letter to one J.
J. Harding suggesting that he was interested in selling the plates to 'the
National Institute,' and that he was also interested in the 'opinions of your
different Entiquarian friends.' In reference to having the plates examined by
'the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia, France, and England,' Wilbur Fugate
went on to say: 'They were sent and the answer was that there were no such
Hyeroglyphics known, and if there ever had been, they had long since passed
away. Then Smith began his translation.' (The reference to Joseph Smith
having begun a 'translation' of the plates is in error, since they were never
returned to Nauvoo. The prophet died a martyr the following year.)
"However, the question of *when* the plates were taken from Nauvoo is not as
important as the fact that they *were* taken away. In spite of the
considerable excitement they generated in Nauvoo after their 'discovery,' the
plates were allowed to leave the Saints, apparently without fanfare. No known
record exists which intimates that Joseph Smith or those around him ever
purchased or attempted to purchase the plates (as were the mummies associated
with the Book of Abraham papyrus), even though their owner, Wiley, was
prepared to sell them.
"That the plates had aroused interest in Nauvoo is evident from two accounts
that were not published until years later. In a letter written to a friend on
Sunday, May 7, Parley P. Pratt said: 'A large number of Citizens have seen
them and compared the characters with those on the Egyptian papyrus which is
now in this city.' A few lines previously, he had begun his comment on the
plates as follows:
"'Six plates having the appearance of Brass have lately been dug out of a
mound by a gentleman in Pike Co. Illinois. They are small and filled with
engravings in Egyptian language and contain the genealogy of one of the
ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah. His bones were found in the
same vase (made of Cement). Part of the bones were 15 ft. underground.'
"This calls to mind the statement from the William Clayton journal referred to
above:
"'I have seen six brass plates which were found in Adams County by some
persons who were digging in a mound. They found a skeleton about six feet
from the surface of the earth which was nine feet high....President J. has
translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom
they were found, and he was a descendant of Ham through whom they were found,
and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth.'
"It seems, then, that there was considerable talk about the plates in
Nauvoo--and apparently as much misinformation and hearsay was current among
people as there was fact. Pratt heard of a discovery in Pike County; Clayton
said Adams County. Clayton said that the find was made six feet under ground;
Pratt, fifteen. Elder Pratt spoke of a cement vase--an item mentioned in no
other account. Clayton mentioned a skeleton nine feet tall--also unmentioned
in any other account. Clayton said that the plates gave a history of an
Egyptian; Pratt mentioned a Jaredite.
"The elements that these two accounts have in common suggest a basic jist to
the hearsay stories circulating in Nauvoo and also that Joseph Smith with
others saw and wondered about the nature of the material that had been brought
to Nauvoo. But there is, obviously, leagues of difference between an actual
translation of sacred records and a consideration of artifacts of uncertain
origin--the former requiring study, prayer, and revelation; the latter
characterized perhaps by an examination for points of similarity, etc., in a
setting where various suggestions are likely aired by those present and
elaborated on as discussion continued. And the actual presence of William
Clayton or Parley P. Pratt in any discussion on the topic with Joseph Smith
is simply unknown.
It is hard to imagine that the Prophet Joseph Smith wouldn't have been
intrigued by the plates. When they were first shown to him, he may well have
noted certain correspondence between some characters on the plates and
'reformed Egyptian' and contemplated the possibility of authenticity and
translation, as the Charlotte Haven letter suggests. But how much of the
conjecture that was current in Nauvoo at the time might be a speculation in
itself, impossible to verify from the available accounts. The one account
that was published in the 'Times and Seasons', whose editors were equally as
intimate with Joseph Smith as William Clayton and Parley P. Pratt, could only
report that 'Mr. Smith has had those plates, what his opinion concerning them
is we have not yet ascertained.'
"The central issue in the whole question of Joseph Smith's involvement in the
Kinderhook plate episode is that the expected 'translation' did not appear.
And this fact may well explain the characteristic that has made this hoax most
interesting--that it was never carried to completion. That is, the Kinderhook
plates were not authentic artifacts is no longer in doubt; but if the plates
were faked, why wasn't the hoax revealed right away?
"It has been suggested that the whole Kinderhook plate incident was, as Wilbur
Fugate said in his 1878 and 1879 letters, a heavy-handed, frontier-style
'joke.' On the other hand, the conspirators' objective might have been more
pointed--to produce a bogus set of plates and then reveal the hoax in a shower
of ridicule *after* the Prophet made a purported 'translation.' In either
case, they were frustrated in their scheme because no translation ever
appeared. In fact, there is no evidence that Joseph Smith ever concluded the
plates were genuine, other than conflicting statements from members who hoped
that a translation would come forth--and in fact no evidence that the Prophet
manifested real interest in the 'discovery' after his initial viewing of the
plates. The statement taken from William Clayton's journal didn't appear
until September 1856 in Salt Lake City's 'Deseret News'. At that point, time
itself had eroded away the opportunity for a hearty joke, if that were the
hoaxers' intent; and the absence of an actual translation in spite of the
Clayton entry in the 'History of Joseph Smith' could only have added to their
frustrations--assuming that the hoaxers even knew of the 'Deseret News'
account, which appeared thirteen years later and a thousand miles away.
"Another possible explanation for the hoax never having been carried through
may lie in Robert Wiley's desire to sell the plates as genuine artifacts. For
him to have exposed the hoax before the attempted sale would, of course, have
scuttled any negotiations; and to expose it afterward may have landed the
sellers and conspirators in jail for attempted fraud--turning the tables and
making them the object of ridicule instead of Joseph Smith.
"Significantly, there is no evidence that the Prophet Joseph Smith ever took
up the matter with the Lord, as he did when working with the Book of Mormon
and the Book of Abraham. And this brings us to the other side of the story,
for those of us who believe that Joseph Smith was the Lord's prophet: Isn't
it natural to expect that he would be guided to understand that these plates
were not of value as far as his mission was concerned? That other members may
have been less judicious and not guided in the same way cannot be laid at the
Prophet's feet. Many people, now as well as then, have an appetite for
hearsay and a hope for 'easy evidence' to bolster or even substitute for
personal spirituality and hard-won faith that comes from close familiarity
with truth and communion with God.
"So it is that in the 100-year battle of straw men and straw arguments, Joseph
Smith needs no defense--he simply did not fall for the scheme. And with that
understood, it is perhaps time that the Kinderhook plates be retired to the
limbo of other famous faked antiquities."
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